Self Discovery

Ok, I found what I
     was after –
let’s just call it “laughter.”

Transcending the Mutual Reality Accord

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.” -Arther C. Clark

I was driving to work through traffic and, feeling a little ill, began to apply a healing modality known as “body talk.” This involves, in this particular instance, tapping the head and heart to “synchronize” the operations of the brain with those of the rest of the body (the theory derives from the claim that the brain and heart come from the same cell mass during embryonic development, and that they must “work together” in order for health to exist). At any rate, of course I thought about how strange that must look to other drivers, me tapping my head and chest while driving along. Then again, not much stranger than people appearing to chat blithely away into thin air when in fact they are conversing on their cell phones! We’ve gotten used to the “cell phone monologue,” to some degree, and are no longer surprised by it. But Body Talk is another matter, like so much that goes beyond the consensus reality.

This got me to thinking about how marvelous and creative life is. It operates way beyond our comprehension and far outside that which we consider our comfortable cosmology. What we accept is primarily what we can symbolize with the common language. Things that move beyond that are frequently labeled superstition. Even many things (perhaps like this blog posting) that attempt to speak of things outside the common reality, even if they speak of real experience, verified with confidence, are still not accepted due to their apparent dissonance with the “Mutual Reality Accord.” But that is well and good, because it is another “unalienable right” that one may accept or deny what one chooses (of course, one must also pay the price either in being wrong, or, sometimes, in being right).

Back to Body Talk and other “mysterious phenomena.” Energy and Information determine the course of events in the universe. Information provides the form energy takes and the rule by which energy flows. Energy “enlivens” the form. Information is, then, the geometry of the physical reality, while energy enlivens that geometry. With the purposeful “tapping” of Body Talk (similar in fact to the Chinese medical modality known as Do In), we have both energy and information. Who’s to say that that energy and information do not enter a causal web that extends beyond the scope of the current understandings of science? Any real scientist must admit that history is filled with perceived false relations that turned out to be real. Where you have both energy and information, and especially verification (even if personal in nature), there are reasonable grounds to accept, even if only provisionally, that a causal relationship is at play.

As for myself, it isn’t important that anyone believe me, or even accept that there is a greater reality beyond current “knowledge.” I’ve lived long enough and experimented sufficiently with life to have confidence in my own experience. That is the basis for living and it isn’t necessary that others agree in order to go on enjoying the fullness of life. If one keeps integrity with one’s self, then certainly one’s choices will justify themselves. Even the ones that turn out to be a mistake, if taken sincerely in a context of conscious discovery, become a blessing and justify the quest for an ever greater understanding and awareness.

42 — A Question

In Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, 42 is the answer given by an immense computer to the question “What is the meaning of life?” It suddenly struck me to ponder in what base was 42 displayed. Suppose it was hexadecimal. In that case, 42 (hex) would be 66 (dec) (not far from the “number of the beast”). 42 (hex) written in Octal, is written 111 (a trinity of unities or of the first 3 powers of 8, eight being the “Master number” in numerology). And if 42 were displaying as an octal representation of a number, 42 (octal) would be 22 (hexidecimal) . 42 if displayed as a decimal representation would be 101010  binary. When viewed in binary, 42 (dec) is a trinity of dualities — i.e. 3 pairs of on-off (or yes-no, or light-dark, or true-false, or any other dichotomy, including the dichotomy of dichotomies, which is that we can talk about true and false, but there is a reality beyond true and false that both excludes and includes them). What if it is meant to be seen in all bases greater than or equal to base 5 (5 being the number of fingers on the human hand)?

The Photon’s Perspective — A Question

What would the universe look like to a Photon?  From Einstein’s perspective (vis. relativity), the universe would appear to be at a stand-still since the time-frame of the world outside the photon would be perpendicular to that of the photon, i.e. in stasis relative to the photon.  So, even though the photon is interacting with matter, does it see no change at all in the cosmos around it?  That seems unlikely as it must interact.  There seems to be a paradox.  Any physicist out there who can answer?

How Serious Must it Get Before We Can Laugh?

“It is worth noting that Wittgenstein once said that a serious and good philosophical work could be written that consisted entirely of jokes (without being facetious). Another time he said that a philosophical treatise might contain nothing but questions (without answers).” -Norman Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir (Oxford 1958), p. 29.

In truth, isn’t most academic philosophy a joke (mostly humorlessly posed) or a series of unanswered (or at least unknowingly-asked) questions? When will we be able to get the joke without appearing “unserious,” or to be threatening the foundations of western civilization (i.e. the reputations, tenure and pay-checks of professors and colleges)? When that occurs, true philosophy will have begun.